


Friendly Neighborhood Poltergiest

by Flanemoji



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drug Use, F/M, Heavy Themes, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, Reddie, Tags to be added as necessary, not really a fix-it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:55:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flanemoji/pseuds/Flanemoji
Summary: It starts with soup.Specifically, a very intense craving for alphabet soup.“Are you gonna eat it if you buy it?” Beverly's got her phone propped up on the kitchen counter while she makes sandwiches.“Am I gonna— of course I’m gonna fuckin’ eat it, Bev. If I’m craving it, why would I buy it and not eat it?”“Then you should get it. Buy eighty fuckin’ cans of alphabet soup. As long as you eat.”—OR a story about very creative forms of postmortem contact and the consequences that follow.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	1. A Craving

**Author's Note:**

> HI!! IM BACK, SORT OF! note @ the end with some thoughts and explanations!

It starts with soup. 

Specifically, a very intense craving for _alphabet_ soup. 

Now, Richie doesn’t usually _crave_ things, not unless he’s high as hell and gets a case of the munchies, so this sudden, prominent _want_ for soup, and not just any soup, but _alphabet soup,_ was pretty weird. He tells Beverly about it on a Tuesday night FaceTime call. 

“Are you gonna eat it if you buy it?” She’s got her phone propped up on the kitchen counter while she makes sandwiches. 

“Am I gonna— of course I’m gonna fuckin’ eat it, Bev. If I’m craving it, why would I buy it and not eat it?” Richie holds his phone in his hand, studies how Beverly handles food with delicate hands, like if she lays the ham in the wrong direction, something bad will happen. Maybe that's how it was before. 

“Then you should get it. Buy eighty fuckin’ cans of alphabet soup. As long as you eat.” 

He hears the worry in her tone and his eyes flick up to the little picture of himself in the corner of the screen. Stubble has turned into a full salt-and-pepper beard, with dark baggy eyes and greasy hair to match. His cheekbones are more pronounced than they’ve ever been, and what might have passed as a white, gangly, goofball a few months ago currently resembles a deflating plastic bag. (Thanks, Katy Perry.)

“I am eating,” is the automatic response that comes, but even Richie has a hard time believing himself. Bev tuts over the phone, but before she can launch into her weekly tirade, Richie claims he has to take a piss and hangs up. 

He doesn’t _actually_ have to pee, but he gets up and goes to the bathroom anyway. He stares at himself under the heavy fluorescent lights and realizes he looks even shittier than he thought he did. Richie takes his glasses off and sets them on the counter, rubbing at his eyes so roughly he sees stars. 

_Alphabet soup._

Richie sighs and runs a hand through his hair only to make a face at himself in the mirror. It feels disgusting. He realizes he should wash it, probably cut it too, but just the idea makes him more tired than running a half marathon. Instead, he sticks his hands under the faucet and starts washing. It’s mindless, with hot water that burns just enough to keep him tethered to the now. 

He picks his glasses up and studies them. The rims are navy blue, with silver around the edges. Mike had picked them out as soon as there had been an opportunity. At the time, Richie didn’t ask how he’d gotten his prescription, or how much they’d cost, or how this shade of blue worked so well with all his clothes, but he thinks about it now, in the darkness between sleep. Richie had his glasses, and then suddenly he had new ones, thanks to Mikey. 

There’s no crack in these, but he can still see it; over the right lens in the corner, splattered with grime and blood. Bill had tried to throw them away, but Richie had put up such a fight that everyone left it alone. They sit wrapped and untouched in the drawer of his nightstand. He can’t look at them, but throwing them away feels somehow worse. 

His apartment is dead quiet. Richie tries to fill the silence as often as possible, with music or television or FaceTime calls with the Losers, although that last one has been hard, considering everyone seems to be moving on and being happy and in love, but he makes the effort. He reminds himself there’s no use in being a bitter little bitch; just because he’s miserable doesn’t mean everyone else should be. 

The point is, Richie doesn’t like the silence, so he fills it up. Even the small gaps between give him anxiety, so he reaches for the remote to turn the TV on, when a shiver runs down his spine and he feels that _tug_ again. 

_Soup. Alphabet soup._

“Jesus fucking—” he curses out loud, into the emptiness of his apartment. “Fine. _Fine_ , fuck it. Fuck it, let’s get some fucking soup.” Richie grumbles to himself as he throws on some sweats and grabs his keys, bitching up a storm about soup and cravings and voices. 

He decides against driving, choosing to walk down the street to a little grocery store in his neighborhood. It’s usually empty and the owner never bothers him about how crappy he looks, so he likes it. He grabs a basket and beelines straight for the canned soup aisle. It’s a tiny store, finding the wall dedicated to minestrone and chicken noodle isn't that difficult.

There’s no one else in the store except him and the cashier, playing games on her phone. The lights are harsh and bright, buzzing like flies that swarm around his brain. Richie knows what he came for, so he isn’t sure why he just stands there, like the decision to buy alphabet soup is as serious as life and death. 

For some reason, it feels like it is. 

He reaches out for a can and feels a pinch between his shoulders, quick and sharp. 

_Too much sodium. Bad for you._

There’s the voice that haunts him. Richie stops with his hand in midair, feels like he got dunked in a bath of freezing cold water. He hears it in his dreams, in his nightmares. 

“Fuck you.” 

Richie grabs whichever alphabet soup he wants. 

At the counter, the register girl eyes him up and down. “You like soup?” She pops her gum and starts ringing him up. 

“Not really.” Richie avoids her eyes and hands over his card. 

He ends up with ten soup cans: five low-sodium Campbell’s alphabet soup, two regular, and three of the Chef Boyardee brand. 

When he gets home, Richie wastes no time in ripping one open. He makes it in the microwave instead of on the stove top, even though he knows it will taste better from the stove. He’s not hungry, and it’s two in the morning, but Richie just wants to get this over with. He’s gonna eat this goddamned soup, and then he’s gonna go the fuck to sleep. 

The microwave hums while he taps his fingers impatiently on the counter. A minute and a half is apparently an eternity when you’re waiting for soup. At long last, the ending beep sounds, and Richie grabs the bowl from inside.

He forgets, like an idiot, that the bowl will be hot. 

Richie burns his fingers and drops the bowl on the counter. It doesn’t break, thank god, but some soup spills over the edge onto the floor. He curses, shoves his hand under cold water, and reaches for the paper towels. He cleans the floor and the counter, grabs a spoon, and reaches for his bowl. 

He nearly drops it again. 

_Okay… now I’m_ **_really_ ** _fucking losing it._

Richie stares, and stares and _stares_. Last year, he may have called it a coincidence. He may have laughed, taken a picture and put it on his twitter. He might have not paid any attention to it and just eaten his fucking soup. 

But Richie doesn’t believe in coincidences anymore, and he _definitely_ believes he might throw up from the way his nerves skyrocket in just this second. 

In the middle of the bowl, arranged neatly with a ring of little noodle shapes surrounding it, sit five letters in a line. 

_Richie_


	2. An Aversion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no beta folks, we die in our typos like men.

Alphabet soup starts making Richie sick.

Not the _actual_ soup (although, considering he never bothered to check the expiration date, that's a possibility) but just the thought alone. He thinks about cracking a can and his stomach does somersaults. 

After the initial… _incident_ with the soup, Richie brushed it off. 

Or… he tried to.

He threw the contents of the bowl down the sink and shoved himself between the covers of his bed. He didn’t sleep, but he closed his eyes for the four hours it took for the sun to harass him through the blinds, and sometimes, that’s all a man can ask for.

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s Bill’s turn to deal with him. Richie checks the time, notes that it’s 8:04 in the morning, and decides he has time to make breakfast before he gets an AM text message that will inevitably lead to a phone call.

See, the Losers have a strict “Who’s Watching Richie Tozier Today” schedule. Richie hasn’t let on that he knows, but the pattern became pretty obvious after the third week's rotation. 

Mike takes Monday, which usually takes the form of sending a few funny videos in the morning, a “how’s middle american lunch” text, and a nighttime picture of he and Bill’s dog, Frito. She likes to roll in the sand and make a mess of the house, which Mike and Richie both find hilarious, much to Bill’s dismay. 

Beverly has Tuesday, which is always dinner-and-a-FaceTime. She keeps the phone on the counter while she makes a cute wifey meal for her and the future Mr. Hanscom-Marsh. Ben will wave around in the background and respond to Richie’s smartass comments or snort at his bad jokes. Richie loves it, but he loves the sourpuss look it put’s on Bev’s face even more. 

Wednesdays belong to Bill, a series of text messages in between meetings and fancy-famous book things. He always calls in the morning, before eleven, and keeps Richie occupied by bitching about executives who keep ruining his ideas. At night, Richie gets another picture of Frito, which he saves to a folder of all his friends' adorable pets.

Thursdays are Ben’s day off during the week, so that's his assigned Richie Day. Thursdays is when Ben does grocery shopping while someone cleans the Hanscom-Marsh household. He and Richie make fun of the generic brands of cereals and sodas while he does.

Friday through Sunday belong to the group chat. Aptly named “Clown Hate Club” thanks to Richie’s absolutely golden sense of humor, it is most active on the weekend, when everyone harasses each other with questions about work and future plans for weddings and fashion deals and book signings. Richie adds emojis and inappropriately timed jokes, which appeases everyone enough to not single him out. No one asks how he’s feeling, no one asks when he plans on trying to work again, and no one brings up Derry. If Richie didn’t think too hard about it, he could smile and focus on the way his heart swells at the exchange of voice messages and stupid pictures. 

He’s not sure if the rest of them even _realize_ they have a Tozier Check Up Schedule, or if it’s just Richie looking too far into the way the rest of them interact with him, but for the past month or so, the order has stayed the same. Mike, then Bev, Bill and Ben, and then everyone at once. 

On good days, he jokes to himself about how he’s their collective adult toddler that has to be on careful watch. On bad days…

Well, on bad days, he sends a thumbs up emoji. 

A response of any kind is apparently enough to keep everyone at bay from calling emergency services. 

Either way, it’s Wednesday, and that means Bill will call around eleven, so he decides to make something to eat and at least brush his teeth today. The digital clock on the oven reads 8:48 while he makes some toast and considers scrambling some eggs. He grabs his toothbrush and shoves it in his mouth, stirring yolks in a pan with a spatula until they are decidedly burnt. The toaster pops with two slices of black toast and Richie flinches. Once it's all on a plate, he pads barefoot to the bathroom, rinses his mouth, and scrolls through the recommended animal videos on instagram. 

It’s 10:48 when his phone buzzes to life with a call. The name _Billiam_ flashes over a terribly blurry picture of Bill asleep with a tampon up his nose, thanks to his hunk almost-husbad of a librarian. 

“Big Bill! How’s it hangin’?” Richie musters up all the morning energy he can. He sounds pretty good if he says so himself.

“Hey Rich, good morning. What’s for breakfast?” 

“Straight to the point, huh?” Richie goes back to the kitchen and realizes he spent nearly two hours doing absolutely nothing in the bathroom. “Uh… cold burnt eggs and cold burnt toast.”

“Jesus, Rich, can you eat like a human?”

“I know, Billy, I’m practically marriage material over here with these cooking skills.”

They talk for over an hour. Richie eats his cold and burnt breakfast, Bill talks about how he cancelled his latest movie deal to work on a new book, though he dodges what it’s about for the whole call. Richie asks about divorce proceedings, Bill complains about how guilty he feels that Audra has been so nice about the whole thing, and then they talk about Mike’s next travel venture to the rivers in Utah. It’s nice, mindless chatter that keeps Richie occupied, and by the time Bill hangs up, it's 12:48 in the afternoon. 

His stomach rumbles with hunger, and Richie mulls over what he should make for lunch. Cereal? More toast?

_What about soup?_

Richie feels cold air ruffle a curl near his ear. He tenses, grips the cushions until his fingers hurt and counts to three. He lets out a breath, waits until the feeling of chilly air passes, and decides he isn’t hungry anymore.

He sleeps for the rest of the day. 

*********

  
  


It isn’t until Saturday that Richie tries to eat soup again, and he’s not happy about it. He only goes for the soup because there is _nothing_ else in his apartment to eat, not eggs or toast or even a saltine cracker. His stomach clenches in pain, with the backburner thought that his last actual meal of nutritional value was Thursday night.

(It’s not that he _didn’t_ eat on Friday, just that he only ate every snack bag in his pantry in between naps. He defends himself as if there is a little chastising voice back there, too.)

Richie considers ordering food, but that would require him to place a call, have an interaction, see a person... 

The soup seems less daunting. 

Richie also considers eating the soup with his eyes closed, only to realize he sounds balls-to-the-walls _insane_. He grabs a can of soup and pours it into a bowl.

“Stop being such a little bitch. Everyone’s over It by now.”

The silence in his apartment answers back with a nothingness so heavy that Richie nearly trips over himself when the microwave sounds off that dinners ready.

In the middle of the bowl, surrounded by 8’s and 4’s, sit four letters.

_R i c h_

The whole kitchen feels freezing, like an air vent is blowing directly on him. Without much thought, Richie grabs his phone, snaps a picture, and dumps the soup in the sink. 

He ends up getting dinner from a pizza shop on 48th street that lets him order online.

  
  


*********

Every night, Richie wakes up at the same time. His toes are frozen and his bed feels heavy. 

When he looks at the clock, it blinks back a neon red 4:44 AM.

Despite the cold, his hands and cheeks are always warm.

*********

The following Thursday, after smoking some weed he’d stashed away in a kitchen drawer, Richie decides he isn’t going to let the soup win, because _fuck_ that soup. He also decides he _is_ going to drink the soup with his eyes closed, because no one will ever have to know that he did it, and sometimes you’ve got to crawl before you can run. 

He looks away when he pours it in the bowl and shoves it into the microwave. He begins his Soup Ritual: microwave at one minute and thirty seconds, wait for the beep, then wait another thirty seconds to cool, and try to eat soup.

Richie doesn’t even bother with a spoon this time. He just grabs some paper towels to wrap the bowl in, closes his eyes tight, and drinks right from the dish. 

At first, Richie thinks he might have done something wrong, because the soup is cold.

So he shoves it back in the microwave, watches it hum and spin inside. He tries again.

Bowl out, lips to the edge, drink.

Except… the soup is cold again. 

He tries _again,_ microwaves the soup for five minutes this time. He burns his hands on the bowl when he takes it out, but when Richie dips his finger into the contents, it’s tepid at best.

The bowl is in pieces on the ground while he scrambles for his phone.

A groggy Beverly mumbles a hello on the other line.

“Bevvie! Bev, I think I’m going crazy, Bev.”

“Richie? Are you okay, wha’s wrong?” Her voice is sleep-muddled but concerned. Richie wonders a little too late what time it is.

“I- It’s the-- I just, I’m going crazy.” He clutches his phone tight against his face, stares at moonlight bouncing off his stainless steel fridge. “The soup… I cooked it but it’s cold.”

“The… The soup?” He can hear Beverly stirring, sheets rustling, voice getting clear as she wakes up. Richie feels shaky. What time _is_ it? He woke her up to tell her about the soup, and his name in it and how it’s cold. He feels cold now, numb fingertips and distant thoughts. “Rich? Are you okay?”

Richie opens his mouth, closes it again and grips his phone so tight he wonders if he could break it. Would he feel better if he did? Would the little shards of metal and glass snap him out of it? Time stretches awkwardly and silently forward, Beverly waiting for an answer, Richie trying to find the words in his mouth. There’s a shadow in the corner that blurs in and out of view, but not long enough for him to focus on it.

 _Is_ he okay? 

“I’m high.” Is what he blurts out instead.

Beverly sighs, and disappointment feels heavy through the speakers of his cell. It weighs on his heart and his shoulders. It makes him feel tethered to reality again, because that _is_ real, a needle’s prick reminder of who he is. “Richie…”

There’s sadness there in her voice, too. There’s worry, and caring. Each one feels like a rock that he swallowed, living in the pit of his stomach. It’s grounding. 

Richie Tozier: a disappointment, a responsibility. 

He laughs, and it’s as far away as the shadow in his periphery. “I’m high, Bevvie… I’m gonna sleep it off. Sorry I called you so late.”

She sounds like she’s going to respond, but Richie hangs up anyway. The numbers on his phone say 00:48. 

Richie puts his phone on silent and drags himself to the shower. He douses himself in water so hot, it leaves little red marks on his chest and arms. It’s the most attached to his body he’s felt in the past few days. 

The shadow follows him to the bathroom and then to bed. Everytime he tries to look directly at it, it wisps away. He says goodnight to it anyway.

The soup stays on the floor in the kitchen. He’ll face it tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, adding a bit more to this story! I am rally just writing this for fun, seeing where it takes me! I hope you guys like it as much as I am having a fun time writing it :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, its ash, or flan, as some of you know me. I know I have been AWOL for quite a while (and yes I DO plan on finishing my richiebarry fic!)  
> I work as a nurse, and as many of you know, the COVID19 Pandemic has been rampant globally. Due to my job, I have been ridiculously busy, stressed, and unable to really produce any new content. I've been struggling a lot to be creative, and fallen pretty quiet on the fandom. But I still love the friends I've made, and have ideas sometimes, so I  
> m gonna try writing out this little story to get my juices flowing!
> 
> I have no idea if it'll be good, I have no idea if anyone will read it, but I'm putting it out here anyway.
> 
> Much Love <3


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